[Priest] Shadow DPS Guide

Introduction
This guide will outline how to deal damage as a Level 90 Shadow Priest in a PvE environment. It will be particularly focused on raid content, but much of it will also apply to heroic and solo content, as well as PvP. I will divide this guide into a short version and long version depending on the readers level of interest in the mechanics behind the answers.

Level 15 - None of these have any significant benefit outside PvP, pick at personal preference.

Level 30 - Body and Soul is the defacto standard for most fights, it provides enough run speed to avoid mechanics with the added benefit of some survivability in the same GCD. On some fights kiting must occur, in which case Angelic Feather is the stronger choice. Occasionally root or snare mechanics exist, such as against the Council of Elders (Troll Council) - where Phantasm becomes extremely valuable for escaping sandtraps.

Level 45 Against encounters where movement is predictable and rare, Shadow Word: Insanity shines. For high movement single target fights, Mindbender is the best option. From Darkness, Comes Light is good for dot-cleave, high movement fights where Twist of Fate is used over Divine Insight - but is generally now the weakest of the three options after the nerf to Glyph of Mind Spike.

Mindbender
Mindbender is the best single target option for high movement encounters where Insanity is unlikely to work effectively. It is much easier for beginners to use (push it on cooldown and forget about it), and the clear winner in any encounter where we have additional roles (ie. offensive or defensive dispel-heavy fights, or fights where we are expected to drop shadowform and help heal), as it only asks 1 GCD every minute of us, rather than Insanity's need to consume a very sizeable number of GCDs per minute.

From Darkness, Comes Light
Previously From Darkness, Comes Light (FDCL) was highly prized for the frequency of procs, the scaling with multi-DoT encounters, and the Glyph of Mind Spike's ability to make Mind Blast casts instant. With the nerf to Glyph of Mind Spike and the rising stat weights of our gear, the benefit of FDCL is declining compared to the alternatives (also because Insanity is now a legitimate option). It only becomes worthwhile when you are multi-DOT'ing Vampiric Touch, but because of the weak state of VT this is proving less and less common. It is not a bad option, but it no longer shines as it did before 5.2.

Shadow Word: Insanity
Shadow Word: Insanity is the strongest single target option when high-movement is not required. With some practice SW: Insanity can be effective during light movement, and synergizes with both Divine Insight and Twist of Fate (since it benefits from ToF, where Mindbender does not). For low health adds which are high priority to be burst down, Insanity can also be a strong option as it only requires Devouring Plague to be applied before it is cast, such as the Farraki Basilisks during the Horridon encounter.

Level 60 - Angelic Bulwark is pretty much always the right call, it adds to your health even if you take the damage in a single hit. This means that if you have 450k health raid buffed, the shield will protect you for 90k, if you randomly take 539k damage you won't die: tank-like HP! That's after armor and shadowform and dispersion and power word: shield too! If you take a physical hit and have 34% armor, and -15% from shadowform, you would need to get hit for 832,140 initial damage to actually kill you. If you knew the burst was coming, it was physical damage and you were planning for it - Glyph of Inner Fire, PW: Shield, Angelic Bulwark, Dispersion - you could survive about a 10,000,000 damage physical hit

Level 75 Twist of Fate is simply amazing for any fight where you can maintain high-uptime on it by executing low health adds frequently, Divine Insight is a common choice for council-fights where multi-dotting is possible but ToF is not viable. Power Infusion is a very good burst cooldown combined with Shadow Word: Insanity, for any fights where burst is necessary it is best.

Twist of Fate
Twist of Fate increases all damage by 15% upon damaging a low health enemy, on add fights we can maintain anywhere from 60-90% uptime on a 15% damage buff. It's very hard for Power Infusion or Divine Insight to every compete with that kind of uptime. Twist of Fate, on all the add fights this tier - is what keeps us competitive overall - it gives us a hidden 15% buff compared to all other classes.

Power Infusion
Power Infusion now scales with Bloodlust / Heroism, and adds 5% overall damage while active. PI is an excellent DPS cooldown, especcially when combined with Shadow Word: Insanity. If ever we encounter a fight like Spine of Deathwing again, where an important add needs to be quickly burned down - this will be a must-have. Alternately, for any fight where a high-damage buff phase occurs - combining Power Infusion with Bloodlust will lead to some very impressive numbers!

Divine Insight
Divine Insight has a low 5% proc rate, but whenever multi-dotting Pain is a possibility it can provide very beneficial results by increasing our Shadow Orb regeneration and thus Devouring Plague uptime. However, because multi-dot fights also often involve many low health adds in execute range - often time Twist of Fate may prove a stronger option in the same niche. It is important to recognize when a fight is better suited toward Divine Insight or Twist of Fate.

Megaera and Protectors of the Endless are good examples of fights where Divine Insight can provide additional Devouring Plagues for your kill target. Horridon is a perfect example of a Twist of Fate fight - Divine Insight could also work on Horridon - but ToF will almost always prove superior. If your guild is having trouble killing specific adds during a Twist of Fate-style fight - Divine Insight may also prove beneficial over Twist of Fate - feeding you with high damage Mind Blast casts and more frequent Devouring Plagues - it costs you overall damage, but give you larger burst damage spikes more often to deal with high priority adds.

Level 90 - All three of our level 90 spells are fantastic spells in the right situation. Divine Star is the best option for fights where you will frequently be stacked in melee with the boss - and provides the highest HPS utility in these scenarios. Cascade for fights where many adds are frequently spread far apart is the highest overall damage of the three, but provides no HPS utility. Halo can be an enormously powerful burst damage spell when many adds stack on the tank, and provides non-trivial healing for fights where many allies are spread out: especcially in 25 man (or 40 man) raids.

Dark Cascade
Because cascade will always pick the farthest available jump, it will automatically pick the highest damage jump it can for each bounce. Predicting how the bounces will work out is an important skill for maximizing cascade damage on each encounter. During the Elegon encounter, Cascade can leap between Elegon and adds, Elegon and Sparks, Elegon and Pillars - and leads to extraordinarily high damage especially when combined with Twist of Fate. In 5.2, a similar encounter is Tortos, where Cascade will often bounce between Tortos and Whirling Turtles, then to bats, then to Turtles, then back to the bats.

Dark Star
Dark Star can deal significant damage when many mobs are consistently clumped on top of tanks and Halo is not practical - it should also not be overstated how effective persistent use of Star during raid-damage intensive fights can be for a stacked raid. Generally it is the weakest option when clumping of raid members is not required , but the strongest when it is.

Dark Halo
The sweet spot for Halo is 25 yards, at which point it can deal significant damage to every enemy it hits - and unlike spammable AOE spells like Mind Sear - it does not deal diminished damage per target hit - but full damage to each. For any encounter where the tank frequently picks up tens of mobs and stands still with them - Halo can quickly prove the strongest damage option. In that situation a Cascade would bounce for high damage once, then bounce repeatedly for low damage - while Halo with good aim will deal massive damage to each enemy hit.

The added advantage of Halo over Cascade is the AOE healing which should not be overlooked - a properly timed Halo can be a huge boon to healers after a large raid-damage spike. For fights where a massive spike in everyones health is predictable and healers ask the raid to stack, it may be worth considering asking a Spriest to go out 25 yards from the stack - Halo just before the damage spike, and then Dispersion right before it hits: potentially healing every raid member for 200-600k Alternately, for any fight where Cascade is often good, Halo may also be the better call if healers are struggling - for a moderate DPS loss it will provide 10-20k HPS just using it on cooldown.

Glyphs

Since none of the glyphs increase your DPS directly, the most important glyphs for raiding are those which increase your survivability and increase your support to your raid group. Because of this, Inner Sanctum and Mind Flay provide the most survivability and indirect dps increases, while Vampiric Embrace provides the most survivability and support.

Glyph of Mind Spike
Glyph of Mind Spike no longer synergizes with From Darkness, Comes Light - to provide free Mind Blast casts much of the time. This is very unfortunate and was intended for PvP, but has nerfed PvE mobility and DPS slightly as a result. Since it's pretty much Never the right time to hard-cast Mind Spike, this glyph should no longer be used.

Glyph of Inner Sanctum
Glyph of Inner Sanctum decreases Spell Damage taken by 6%, which is very useful for decreasing stress on healers - its small - but those things add up - it also saves your life sometimes (which on average, increases your dps). Given the alternatives, this is one of the best raiding glyphs at least until your healers are comfortable enough with the healing to try out other things.

Glyph of Inner
Glyph of Inner Fire provides 4% physical damage reduction, which on many fights can be very valuable to your healers. Many raid mechanics are based on physical damage, thus reducing that damage not only increases your chances of surviving mechanics - but also makes you even less a burden on the healers - which is always a good thing! If you aren't sure whether to use Inner Sanctum or Inner Fire, consult a fellow priest, or a friend with Recount or Skada - to check the major sources of damage that are hitting you during attempts.

Glyph of Vampiric Embrace
Glyph of Vampiric Embrace is a direct improvement to the unglyphed version - since so much of our damage comes in bursts through Devouring Plague and Halo, timing Vampiric Embrace to coincide with these cooldowns is significantly better than taking only half their value, +5 additional seconds of regular dps following their completion. Being able to increase your burst healing gives you more control in response to massive raid damage. Lastly, just to put numbers to it - if you deal 100,000 DPS all the time (ignoring DP / Halo damage spikes), then in 10 seconds of 100% healing, you provide 1,000,000 healing. If you deal 100,000 DPS all the time - but only provide 50% healing (5000) for 15 seconds you provide 750,000 healing. Glyph of Vampiric Embrace is better in three ways, 1) it increases your control of healing provided, 2) it responds better when synced to your damage bursts, 3) it provides 25% more healing.

Glyph of Mind Flay
Every time you go to reposition in the fight, you will do so 45% faster thanks to this glyph - this glyph has potentially the largest impact on DPS of all the glyphs because it reduces lost dps during movement. It also makes you move out of fire 45% faster, fire is bad.

Glyph of Dark Binding
Personally I love this glyph, because I like to play Priest Catch by tossing the Prayer of Mending around... and sometimes I forget to go back into Shadowform ^^ It's also annoying that Life Grip drops Shadowform, and this solves that. I will very likely use this in PvP, but in PvE I suspect it will not surpass Glyphs of IS / VE / MF (all above).

Gems
Ordered from most valuable to least valuable and assuming you are either below the 8085 haste plateau, or reforge to other stats once you reach it (which you should do).

Enchantments
The Short Version recommends the enchantments below and ignores profession bonuses such as ring enchants, inscription shoulder enchants, tailoring enchants and so on. Alternatives exist for many of these enchantments which may be better in certain circumstances.

It is possible to gain a superior PP value boot enchant: Enchant Boots - Greater Haste, but this would reduce movement speed and is not ideal for most spriests for most fights: but on a zero-movement Patchwerk encounter it is definitely the superior alternative.

Leg enchants can be substituted with Greater Cerulean Spellthread which provide critical rating instead of spirit - but generally it is better to use the spirit versions and reforge to hit cap - if you were dramatically over hit cap you could use the above to drop spirit without your shifting reforges.

Haste Breakpoints
A haste breakpoint is when a sudden rise in DPS occurs due to an additional tick of a DoT appearing after a specific value of haste (a breakpoint). The most notable one for Shadow in Patch 5.0 is 8085, which should only become a concern once you are in at least ~495 item level. Generally, below this item level you want to prioritize Intellect whenever possible, while picking up socket bonuses when you can - and reforging to maintain hit cap and then maximize haste.

At 8085, Devouring Plague and Shadow Word: Pain each gain an additional tick, which may correspond to a ~2-3k DPS increase in single target - and a larger one depending on multi-dotting Pain and/or Divine Insight increasing Devouring Plague uptime.

After this point, haste will begin to lose value as a secondary stat since it will no longer benefit our GCD - while this is unlikely to be an issue during Throne of Thunder, it will likely become an important point to remember during the Raid on Orgrimmar.

You can view how and when other breakpoints occur using the following helpful tool if you require more information:

General logic of stat priorities at various gear levels: 1. If you are below the 8085 haste breakpoint or not hit capped, you should not worry about relative crit / mastery imbalance, its very small and insignificant compared to hit/haste breakpoints

2. If your item level is below say... ~510 you should probably just regard Crit and Mastery as being equal - and both being significantly worse than Int > Hit > Haste

3. If you have the above but do not have 2pT15 (or 4pT15) you should consider crit better than haste once you are above 8085, but not in range of 10125 haste

4. If you have 1 and 2 covered, and have 2pT15 (or 4pT15) you should consider mastery and crit to be a personal choice

5. If you have 1, 2, and 4 covered, and have Lei Shen's 100% crit trinket, and are making use of it to apply long-lasting 100% crit chance DoTs, you should consider mastery to be a clear winner.

Racial Bonuses
Below are the racial bonuses which provide an increase in DPS. Any race not listed does not gain DPS. Most races gain approximately 300 Intellect worth of various stats, so the DPS gains of most races which have DPS gains is essentially identical: pick races based on appearance, lore, or utility racials - but not damage.

Only two notable exceptions exist, Troll Berserking could potentially be worth 267 more Intellect with flawless use before the Haste plateau, but after reaching the Haste plateau even flawless execution makes it about as valuable as any other race with a DPS racial (listed below).

Undead's Touch of the Grave is potentially worth 1,400 DPS during Mind Sear (if it procs precisely on ICD), however during most boss encounters with one to three dot cleave targets it come out at around 950-1000 DPS: pretty impressive, and it heals you for equal HPS

Human:The Human Spirit Increase spirit by 3%, and Mace Specialization 1% Expertise (becomes 1% Hit). 1% Expertise now converts to Spell Hit for casters, meaning for Mace-wielding Humans: 1% Hit is 340 Hit Rating at level 90, or 196 PP (equivalent to 196 Intellect), and 3% of their Spirit will then be additionally valuable - but it is safe to assume the Human is roughly equivalent to 300 Intellect: comparable to Pandas and Worgen.

Troll:Berserking 20% Spell Haste for 10 seconds every 3 minutes. Averages to 1.1% Haste. Before the 8085 Haste plateau, 1.1% Haste is worth about 378 PP (or Intellect), after the 8085 Haste plateau 1.1% Haste is worth 222 PP (Intellect). However, Berserking is best used when coordinated to burst damage where the potential effect could probably be 50% higher than using it purely on cooldown: 567 PP before the haste plateau, or 333 PP afterwards.

Undead:Touch of the Grave 16,000 damage (and self-healing) every ~10 seconds (ICD), with a 20% proc chance on essentially all forms of damage. Touch of the Grave can crit, and deals 20% additional damage for Shadowpriests because it benefits from Shadowform (already included in the DPS figures below). This results in 1,500 DPS during Mind Sear on many targets (procs almost immediately on the ICD), but for most boss fights with 1-3 target DoT cleaving it gives 950-1000 DPS and HPS gain: pretty spiffy! ^^

Flask of the Warm Sun - compared to prior expansions, the materials for intelligence consumables are the easiest they have ever been: take advantage of them! Be sure to get a flask specialist Alchemist to combine them for you for chances at free procs!

Potion of the Jade Serpent - can be consumed a second before your tank pulls, and again during the fight to have nearly 50 seconds of 4000 additional Intelligence over the course of the fight. Be sure to get a potion specialist Alchemist to make them for good chances of additional procs.

However, if you're keeping the best interest of your raid in mind, you can make Banquet of the Pot to feed a 10 man raid group, or Great Banquet of the Pot to feed a 25 man raid group. In both instances, each combine makes 5 Banquets, and making these Banquets will provide you with additional Intelligence above the stated value for Intelligence users only.

Weak AurasAristari and CommanderSirow have collaborated to bring you these two amazing weak auras for tracking Vampiric Touch and Shadow Word: Pain refreshes (should apparitions ever be fixed). They will show you how much spellpower, haste, crit and mastery you currently have and how much your active DoTs on the target have - as well as identifying positive or negative gains in green and red so you can tell if you should consider updating your DoTs!

I think you made a mistake in the lvl 45 talents it makes no sense to add the dmg of Shadowfiend to From Darkness, Comes Light and
Shadow Word: Insanity and to substract it from Minbender.
You would have to calculate the net gain over only using shadowfiend wich would be Mindbender = 1727 dps , From Darkness, Comes Light = 730 dps and Shadow Word: Insanity = 1440 dps

1) What are those number infront of the spell priority?
2) Why are 2 Orb and 1 Orb DP on the list?
3) Since you don't run any danger of ever going oom, why bother with the managains from talents? People don't like reading many numbers and since mana gains/savings are pretty much useless, you could just remove them. (i'd even remove the damage numbers and go simply with "Mindbender and Mindspike provide a similar damage buff, Mindbender might be better for things like DW-Tendons, FDCL is better on movement fights etc.)
4) A "what's changed"-part might be a good idea.

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Very nice, and I look forward to the level 90 comparison

Kaesebrezen, I suspect the 2 and 1 Orb DP are for movement to fill the time, or if you have 2/1 orbs and need to cast DP now to get the full benefit, but maybe I'm wrong.

One question, I was wondering why you're basing From Darkness, Comes Light's mana saving from Mind Spike's mana cost, since you wouldn't be casting Mind Spike aside from the procs, you wouldn't have any mana to save, or rather the mana saved is from Mind Flay (since Mind Spike is only above Mind Flay in your own priority listing.) Maybe this is just from me seeing the 60 tier as more of a DPS tier than mana-saving.

Either way, glad to see a guide for Spriests

Still an unrepentant Twilight's Hammer cultist. Surrender to the Old Gods.

I can't recommend casting DP with less than 3 orbs, see elitistjerks.com/f77/t130123-simulationcraft_shadowpriests_pandaedition/#post2162061 to know why exactly its ignite mechanic is currently flawed.

Regarding the action priority list, this simplified action list currently provides the best dps for a level 85 shadowpriest with BiS gear:

1) What are those number infront of the spell priority?
2) Why are 2 Orb and 1 Orb DP on the list?

I'm guessing they're the Damage Per Execute Time (DPET) of each spell. And they're on the list because it's not really an actual Spell Priority, it's more of a DPET list, especially since it would mean casting your DoTs, using Mind Spike as a filler, then having to reapply all of your DoTs :p

Mindbender would be that far down because ideally you'd cast it when DoTs aren't about to fall off, and everything else you'll pretty much want to use on cooldown.
Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death are above Halo because, even though Halo does more damage, Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death both procc Shadow Orbs, so you want to use both abilities as much as possible in order to get more Devouring Plagues.
You would only really end up delaying Devouring Plague if you need to refresh DoTs, or if Halo or Mindbender is off cooldown straight after the Mind Blast (that gives you your 3rd orb), otherwise you'd just use it straight after your Mind Blast.

I think you made a mistake in the lvl 45 talents it makes no sense to add the dmg of Shadowfiend to From Darkness, Comes Light and
Shadow Word: Insanity and to substract it from Minbender.
You would have to calculate the net gain over only using shadowfiend wich would be Mindbender = 1727 dps , From Darkness, Comes Light = 730 dps and Shadow Word: Insanity = 1440 dps

Nice catch! You're right I'm compensated for it twice, fixing

Originally Posted by Arlee

If you want you can use the mmo-c database to make tooltips for skills/talents so that you don't have to type out what each one does and you can just write whatever explanation of it you want.

I'll update it with ability links, do I just url link to the ability on the database and it makes the rollover automatically? Thanks!

Originally Posted by Kaesebrezen

1) What are those number infront of the spell priority?
2) Why are 2 Orb and 1 Orb DP on the list?
3) Since you don't run any danger of ever going oom, why bother with the managains from talents? People don't like reading many numbers and since mana gains/savings are pretty much useless, you could just remove them. (i'd even remove the damage numbers and go simply with "Mindbender and Mindspike provide a similar damage buff, Mindbender might be better for things like DW-Tendons, FDCL is better on movement fights etc.)
4) A "what's changed"-part might be a good idea.

1) I use spaces not commas to denote large numbers, because commas in many languages are used in the same way you use periods (meaning someone would read it as 180.000 damage on 3-Orb Devouring Plague and not 180,000) I'll have to think of a better way to structure that though so no one is confused.
2) 2-Orb and 1-Orb DP are on the list because it's a DPET list not a priority list (which someone mentioned, I changed it to Priority before going to bed hoping that would be less confusing for people who werent familiar with simcraft: mistake on my part).
3) I'll write summaries for each level of the talent comparison so people can quickly read what's relevant - but if I don't explain just how close some of the talents are, someone will ask - same is true for mana - if I don't point out that both return ~140k mana, someone is going to exclaim that one is better than the other and we'll spend all expansion doing the math for them: now we can just say "go read the Mindbender section of the Shadow Guide !"
4) Will do, thanks!

As long as you are using our database (and not wowhead) when you do the url it will automatically make the pop-up tooltip

There isn't a MMO-C MoP Talent Calculator I can link to by chance is there? I've noticed MMO-C links off-site for the talent calculator anyways though - but if you'd prefer I use wowtal let me know

Edit:

Also, I've tried two ways to get mmo-c database rollover links to work, neither have worked yet. I did [ url ] links to the page, and I also tried copying and pasting the forum link button on the page itself: both give me a link to the page, but neither are providing a rollover - what am I missing? thanks!

My stats are simmed at level 90 in the free 489 set you get at 90 on the beta, not in tier 13 at 85 (as mentioned in the introduction, and listed in the assumptions in the long version). It's entirely possible they're wrong though, because I'm having to manually change numbers in simcraft to do a level 90 sim since it's not supported yet.

I suppose I could write the guide around 5.0 at level 85, but I didn't think it would really be necessary - with a 30% nerf to hDS most of the content should be pretty easy after 5.0 / before MoP launch.

I'm also compensating for what I think I have wrong in the sim still, so I shifted haste and mastery higher than they actually simmed because I don't think extra dot ticks are simming correctly yet. That said, 83% on haste does *feel* too high - especcially with so much emphasis on instants now. Then again, with DP already ticking so very fast, getting extra DP ticks should end up being very very easy, and of course with it being so much of our damage now - I think that's what is making haste wonky.

Edit: apart from that though, the 85 int (obv), spellpower, crit, and mastery values came out the same as mine - which I didn't realize it was so very close to the 85 numbers. Seems only haste really changed.

---------- Post added 2012-07-07 at 10:40 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Kelesti

Why are you double gemming Reckless?

There are only two datamined int gems I've seen so far are Brilliant Primordial Ruby and Brilliant Serpent's Eye (jc only gem), which have 160 and 320 int respectively. There doesn't seem to be epic quality red gems for non-jc's, which means the choice is between 160 int, or 100 int + 200 haste (Reckless Sardonyx) or 200 haste + 200 spirit (Energized Adventurine).

I also vaguely remember a blue post about trying to discourage the 'ignore socket bonuses, stack primary stat' strategy that pretty much all classes are going for in cata: if true, might explain why we don't have pure int gems. If my sims are right (big if, but I'll keep working on them and change it when I get a better result) then 200 haste > 60 int, and 200 haste + 200 spirit are better than 160 int. So the problem is two-fold, no pure int epic gem, and my questionable modifications to simcraft to try to get a level 90 result

I'm guessing they're the Damage Per Execute Time (DPET) of each spell. And they're on the list because it's not really an actual Spell Priority, it's more of a DPET list, especially since it would mean casting your DoTs, using Mind Spike as a filler, then having to reapply all of your DoTs

I'm confused, why do you have Devouring Plague twice on the list, and why is the second one on the bottom of the priority when Mind Blast and Shadow Word: Death are on cooldown? Unless you already have the DoT on your target, I would assume that you'd want to use it over mostly anything.

The list would only make sense if SW:P and VT are between those two DPs (where they should be, even below MB and SW).

The normal 5.01 version on their google page,

I meant revision, because i'm not getting anywhere the scaling factors as you do in lvl 496 raid gear.
I'm getting something closer on the line with the simecraft stats for 85.

Regardless of that, i think Mindbender is a bit off(a large bit) in simcraft with it's damage. It's hitting for more than double than Shadowfiend, which it shouldn't do. It should only have a higher uptime. Currently it looks like Shadowfiend: Count 29 - hit 13000 vs. Mindbender: Count 98 - hit 33000 , where it should be hit 12000.

If i substract the bugged Mindbender value, i get a result of FDCL > Mindbender, which is somehow similar to by dummy testing showing FDCL ahead of Mindbender